


New Permanent Wink

by elementalmystique



Series: Graceland 1.04 Pizza Box [1]
Category: Graceland (TV)
Genre: Gen, Pizza Box, Spoilers, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-28
Updated: 2013-06-28
Packaged: 2017-12-16 12:17:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/861949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elementalmystique/pseuds/elementalmystique
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Briggs, Charlie, and Mike are discussing Eddie stalking and threatening Mike. Spoilers from Pizza Box.</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Permanent Wink

**Author's Note:**

> I am on a roll here.

“You made a heat run back to the house?” Charlie asked. 

Briggs paced back and forth in the living room, scoffing at Charlie’s mother-hen nature emerging. She glared at him and continued, “You made a heat run, right?” 

The subject of her questioning was sitting at the table next to her, back to Briggs. The instant Mike had walked into the house, Briggs had taken a single look at his face and known that something was wrong. Without any cover stories to keep up, Mike’s fresh-scrubbed Boy Scout face exposed all his secrets. Earlier, he and Briggs had both been giddy with the fact that Mike’s hard sell of training Bello’s men had gone through, but something had now gone wrong. 

Sure enough, what had spilled out of the kid’s mouth had troubled Briggs, and of course Mama-Bear Charlie, who had taken a break from her famous sauce to sit down and be part of dealing with the problem. At times Briggs felt like he and Charlie were the resident chaperones of this motley crew of diverse misfits. He was the pa, she was the ma, and Johnny, DJ, and Paige were their bickering teenagers. 

But with all the frustration and drama, this was still his motley crew, and baby Levi was already a solid part of Graceland by now. Mike had more than proven himself in every challenge flung his way, and at this point in time, he was shouldering more than Briggs had ever wanted him to carry, especially as a green rookie right out of the field. 

“Of course,” Mike replied obediently, but the heavy emotion weighed in his polite words was almost palpable. 

“Good boy,” Charlie said, somehow managing in that sweet motherly shtick of hers to not sound condescending, rude, or sexually charged. 

“Okay, but it doesn’t matter, all right,” Briggs cut in. “Next time Eddie might not be in a talking mood. And what if he reports back to Bello?” 

The kid had almost died tonight because of Eddie. Briggs felt a rash flush of heat envelop his body. One of his own had been placed in danger because of a trigger-happy flunky who wanted nothing more than to lick his master’s boots had been stalking Mike like he was meat. 

“No, no, no,” Mike interrupted. “Bello did not send him after me.” 

“K, but, Mike,” Briggs said obligingly, “if Eddie gives him anything suspicious, he’ll slit your throat and dump your dead body in the L.A. river.” 

Mike had that Superman-clefted chin propped up on his hands. He raised his eyebrows tiredly in acknowledgment of Briggs’ ironclad statement. 

“Eddie is a liability,” Charlie argued hotly. “Drag his ass in.” 

“We can’t,” Mike answered flatly. 

“Why not?” Charlie snapped. 

“We’d only fuel his conviction.” 

Briggs felt the miniature lightbulb in his mind illuminate. “No, no, no, no, no. Charlie’s right. Yeah, we bring him in. Only we’re going to fuel Bello’s conviction instead.” 

Glancing at Mike’s drawn face, Briggs felt almost foolish about what he had confessed earlier to Charlie. Bello was his case, true, and he had wanted to be more involved than merely confined to the sidelines. However, the kid hadn’t ever wanted to be flying solo. Mike had come back from the restaurant and joked about pizza boxes and Eddie digging his gun into his gut, but even then, Briggs had seen the tension still radiating off the planes of his face and the angles of his body. And now? Well, the stress of the entire situation was practically sewn into the kid’s frame. There were lines at the corners of his mouth and below his eyes and in his forehead that Briggs hadn’t remembered seeing at breakfast that same day. Even his cheekbones seemed more prominent, like his face was sinking in into itself. Just the world-weary way he was sitting hunched at the table only added fuel to the proverbial fire. 

Now Mike sighed tiredly and blinked as if it hurt him, looking decades older than his twenty-something years. When he next spoke, his every syllable was laden with stress. “Meaning what?” 

“Well these two obviously have trust issues, as evidenced by Eddie’s new permanent wink, right, so we’ll just reinforce that.” 

Mike turned his head away as if to disagree with the idea and closed his eyes, rubbing his fingers over his eyelids, as he shook his head. Charlie’s gaze flitted to him and she watched him for a second or two before returning her stare steadily back to Briggs. Her lips thinned. “How?” 

Briggs shrugged. “Get Paige to reprise her role as Bobby Moi’s girlfriend. And Charlie, you bring him in.” 

As Mike opened his eyes, Charlie tossed Briggs a quick, grim smile that said, My pleasure.


End file.
